After a surgical procedure, organs and/or tissues adjacent to a surgical site may adhere to the surgical site by fibrous bands of tissue know as adhesions. Adhesions may result in delayed healing, post-operative pain and/or infection, and potentially a need for further surgical intervention. Thus, there is a need for a barrier for preventing adhesion to the surgical site.
Adhesion formation can be prevented or limited by providing a physical barrier between the traumatized surgical site and adjacent organs and/or tissue, The physical barrier can be applied to sites of potentially adhesiogenic tissue and organ structures to serve as a temporary barrier separating opposing tissue/organ surfaces. These barriers are often provided as films that are applied at the conclusion of the surgical procedure.
While such film-like barriers would be useful, it may be difficult to apply such a barrier during a surgical procedure. For example, during laparoscopic procedures the surgery is performed by using a camera that is mounted on laparoscope that is inserted through a small surgical port called a trocar. The surgical site is viewed on a monitor and surgical instruments access the site through additional trocars. Conventional trocars vary in diameter from 5 mm to 12 mm in diameter. To minimize trauma and scarring both the surgeon and patient prefer to use as small a trocar as possible. As a consequence it becomes challenging to be able to insert a film-like barrier through a trocar and a deliver it to a surgical site while viewing on a monitor. For example, the film-like barrier will need to be introduced into the body in a collapsed state and then expanded back to its original form. It may be difficult to collapse the barrier (e.g., depending on its material properties, size and/or shape) and/or expand (e.g., depending on its collapsed orientation/configuration, if it comes into contact with liquid, etc.).
In addition, there are other factors that could complicate the delivery of a film-like barrier in a laparoscopic procedure. For example, due to the confined spaces in laparoscopic surgery, the film-like barrier may adhere to unintended organs and/or tissue. In addition, the film-like barrier may be sticky when it comes in contact with a liquid such as blood or saline used for irrigation causing the film-like barrier to inadvertently adhere to the trocar, unintended tissue/organ or itself. Multiple barriers may be needed to adequately cover the surgical site. Therefore, there exists a need for an improved barrier application device for effectively deploying a barrier at a surgical site.